


This Ink That Stains (Keeps Me Alive)

by startrecking



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Geno's Fascinating Flee From Finland, M/M, Meet-Cute, POV Alternating, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6206719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrecking/pseuds/startrecking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Evgeni found out that his Soulmate liked hockey was probably the best day in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Ink That Stains (Keeps Me Alive)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](http://princess-tuna.tumblr.com/post/140598950943/let-gavin-free-soulmate-au-where-when-you-write) Soulmate AU

The day Evgeni found out that his Soulmate liked hockey was probably the best day in his life. 

 

He was eleven years old, sat in his first class of the day and already wishing school was over so he could just get back to the rink, when markings started to spread across the skin of his left arm. They were faint at first, light grey lines and haphazard circles that didn’t really make any sense, but as they grew bolder and darker he noticed they were plays. 

 

A spark of excitement had run through his body when he realised his soulmate liked sports, and he had to bite his bottom lip to keep from grinning too obviously. Of course, it could have been any sport, plenty of sports had plays that looked like that, but then he saw the beginnings of a hockey stick on the back of his hand.

 

Evgeni had been sent to the headmaster’s office when the teacher noticed he wasn’t paying attention, but he didn’t care.  _ He was destined to be with someone who liked hockey _ .

 

The plays kept coming, growing more and more complex as the years passed, and Evgeni could tell that his soulmate had a hockey brain and that they loved the game as much as he did. He had shown Dennis as soon as he came home from school that first day, the markings starting to fade but still obvious.

 

Dennis had laughed and shaken his head.

 

_ “Of course you are destined to be with someone who likes hockey. It’s all you ever think about anyway _ .”

 

That wasn’t exactly true. Evgeni thought about his soulmate as well sometimes.

 

Sometimes Evgeni wrote back, asking questions about the plays, making sure to keep them on his upper arm where they wouldn’t get in the way.They were a completely different style to what he was used to with his team, but they looked like they could work. There were never any replies, but that didn’t sadden him; either Evgeni’s soulmate didn’t like to wear short sleeved t-shirts and never saw them, or they didn’t know Russian.

 

If it was the latter, then he could always just teach them.

 

***

 

Sidney was twelve years old when he found out his Soulmate was Russian. For a year or so he had seen symbols and shapes appear on his upper right arm when he’d been sketching out hockey plays when he really should have been sleeping, but he had no idea what they meant. 

 

He had always been too tired to get out of bed and get a piece of paper so he could copy them down to ask about later, and when he woke up in the mornings, the markings would be gone. 

 

He hadn’t worried about it too much, knowing that he could always ask his soulmate what they meant when they finally met kept him calm.

 

He’d been surprised when he woke up one morning to see some of the symbols scribbled on his forearm, followed by a series of numbers that looked like a date. He’d asked his mum over breakfast, and she’d smiled at him and explained it meant his soulmate was Russian. They didn’t have the same alphabet as Sidney did, but it was still a language all the same.

 

Sidney had gone straight to the language section of the library after school that day.

 

***

 

Evgeni woke up on his 14th birthday to see a faint “привет” scribbled on the back of his hand. It was wonky in places, obvious that it was written by someone who didn’t know Cyrillic that well, but it made Evgeni’s heart swell none the less.

 

Immediately he had grabbed for a pen and started writing down a stream of questions on his arm, wanting to get answers to everything that he had wanted to ask for years.

 

When his dad had seen Evgeni staring intently at the writing on his arm he asked what had happened.

 

Evgeni had explained that his soulmate had finally written something Russian to him, and that he had wanted to ask every question he had whilst he was still awake. 

 

Vladimir had looked at his son with a frown, and pulled the car over for a moment.  _ You shouldn’t have done that, _ Vladimir had said, and Evgeni felt his heart sink at those words.  _ Your soulmate isn’t Russian _ , he had rushed to explain when he saw the look on his son’s face.  _ They learned Cyrillic so they could communicate with you, but they probably only just started. Asking them so many things in a language they don’t understand could overwhelm them and put them off from learning more.  _

 

When the ink had come off in his post-practice shower, Evgeni had asked his dad how to say sorry in English. He didn’t know what nationality his soulmate was, but everyone knew what English looked like.

 

He had woken up the next morning with a smile drawn underneath the word he had shaped carefully, per his father’s instructions the night before, and known that everything would be okay.

 

***

 

Sidney stopped learning Russian at fourteen. He found it frustrating, could never get the sounds right in his mouth from the audio tapes he bought, and no matter how much he tried, his letters would never look as good as the one’s in the books. 

 

And besides, he needed to start focussing on hockey more.

 

He still communicated with his soulmate, but it was always through small doodles. It was obvious that his soulmate was about as good at English as Sidney was at Russian, but at least stick men and smiley faces would never do them wrong.

 

***

 

When Geno got drafted second overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins he had wanted to scream, his smile so big that his cheeks were aching by the end of the day.

 

After all the media and the rush of English that always made his head hurt he remembered that he should probably tell his soulmate what happened, but without his parents or any translators in the room with him, he didn’t know what to write. 

 

He settled on just writing  _ hockey _ in all caps, followed by at least five or six exclamation points. Immediately, a small smile had appeared under the words, and Evgeni had fallen asleep with the lights on, eyes trained on the doodle as though he was looking at the face of his soulmate themselves.

 

***

 

Sidney wished that he could talk to his soulmate more the night before his draft, but there were too many risks of drawing on his arms when he would be on the screens of hundreds of thousands in less than twenty four hours. 

 

Just before he fell asleep though, he settled on a small smile on the inside of his wrist, and underneath that the russian word for “bravery”. It’s still wonky, and probably looks even worse than it would have three years ago, but it doesn’t matter. His soulmate will still get it.

 

***

 

Evgeni had never felt as scared in his life as he did right then, hidden away in a bathroom cubicle in a Finnish airport, hockey gear and clothes crammed in with him and his passport and Visa clutched in his hands. He felt like crying, all the fear and misery of leaving his homeland and his family behind welling up inside, but there’s one thing keeping him sane.

 

On the inside of his arm, tucked up close to his elbow, is a crude drawing of a hand giving thumbs up. He can’t remember what the drawing was in response to, can’t remember what he even had for breakfast that morning (though there was a chance he would be reminded of that soon enough if his nerves keep threatening to overwhelm him), but it’s a reminder that there is someone out there who will always be there for him.

 

It’s the thumbs up that keeps him steady as he sneaks out of the toilet. It’s what keeps him calm as he makes his way towards the exit and into the car of a man who he’s only just met, and it’s what keeps him sane as he thinks about how stressful the next week is going to bed.

 

As soon as Evgeni can get his hand on a pen that works against his skin, he scribbles one of the few English words he knows beneath it.

 

_ Thanks _

 

***

 

Meeting Evgeni Malkin had been an adventure for Sidney. He had been too shy at first to use what little Russian he had taught himself after finding out his soulmate’s nationality, and after that he realised he didn’t exactly want to explain  _ why _ he knew Russian. So he let it slide.

 

He was quick to find out just how easily Evgeni-- “ _ Geno, Sid. Call me Geno” _ \-- and himself worked together. It was almost like the language barrier wasn’t there, and they could understand each other almost perfectly without even needing to use words.

 

He could feel Gonch and Mario watching them from the manager’s box as they skated together for the first time. The lights were dimmed, and there was no one in goal, but Sidney felt a thrill run through him when they made a tic-tac-toe shot go top shelf.

 

Evgeni’s weight crushing him into the boards moments later in a celebratory hug had him smiling instantly, and Sidney found himself wishing he could play hockey with Geno forever.

 

After the initial skate, Geno was ushered into an office to officially sign his contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sidney decided to wait for him, taking his time shucking out of his gear and showering and getting dressed again. Still, after all that, Geno wasn’t finished so he sat in his stall with his hands folded in his lap and let his thoughts take over.

 

***

 

Evgeni was tense all through the meeting. Gonch was sat next to him, summarising what the owners and managers and other Pittsburgh Penguins big heads were saying, and that was always a small relief, but he still couldn’t help the nervous laugh when the pen he was handed didn’t work on his first attempt at signing. 

 

He rubbed it against his skin running the ballpoint back and forth until a small squiggle showed and he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. 

 

With the contract signed and hands shaken, he felt like a new man as he left the office and was grinning as he walked to the locker room where Sid said he would wait for him.

 

Sid didn’t notice when he walked in, too busy staring at something on his left arm. Evgeni walked closer and called out Sid’s name to get his attention, but lost his own when he noticed what it was Sid had been staring at.

 

A dark blue squiggle, as if Sid had tried to get a pen to work against his skin, identical to the one that Evgeni had drawn on himself mere moments before. 

 

Something must have shown on his face, because Sidney was looking between his own arm and Evgeni when Evgeni managed to tear his eyes away from the mark.

 

“What that?” Evgeni asked, his voice cracking from his dry throat as he looked back at Sidney’s mark.

 

“Oh, it’s my Soulmate,” Sidney explained with a bashful smile, turning his wrist so Evgeni could see it more. 

 

Evgeni didn’t know much English, but  _ Soulmate _ was one of the few that he recognised, and a lump gathered in his throat as he heard Sid utter the two syllables. 

 

“ _ Sid _ ,” Evgeni said again trying to convey what he really wanted to say in that one sound, but groaning frustratedly at the confusion on Sid’s face.

 

“What is it, Geno?” 

 

“ _ Soulmate _ ,” Evgeni said, putting as much weight behind the word as he could as he reached for the sleeve of his coat and pulled it up high enough to show the mark he had drawn on himself. The mark that matched the one on Sid’s arm perfectly.

Evgeni watched as the look on Sid’s face turned from confused to even more confused and then to wonder as his eyes finally settled on the mark.

 

“Geno-- Geno,  _ oh my god _ .” Evgeni didn’t know how to interpret the words, but the smile that spread across Sid’s face clued him in on Sid’s emotions. 

 

He watched as Sidney reached into the cupboard space underneath his locker seat and pulled out a marker, not quite sure what was happening until Sid uncapped the pen and quickly drew a smiley face just under the squiggle. 

 

Just like so many times before, Evgeni watched as a smile faded into being on his skin, and laughed in astonishment as he looked Sidney in the eyes, tears of joy starting to form in his own.

 

“ _ Sid _ ,” he said again, though this one was barely more than a breath of air, before reaching out and tugging Sidney closer. He wrapped his arms around the smaller man, pulling him into one of the hardest hugs he had ever given. 

 

He should be careful, but he couldn’t help it. It was Sidney, it  _ had _ been Sidney all along, and Evgeni suddenly found himself laughing as he remembered how he had found out that his soulmate had liked hockey.

 

“Of course it was you drawing hockey plays in the dead of night when you were ten years old,” he said in Russian, needing to speak the words out loud, not really caring whether Sidney could understand or not.

 

“What?” Sidney asked, pulling back just far enough that he could look Evgeni in the eyes again.

 

“He said  _ of course ten year old you was drawing hockey plays in the night _ ,” Gonch’s voiced piped up from the doorway to the locker room, translating for Sidney’s sake. 

 

Evgeni had almost completely forgotten that the rest of the world existed, so caught up in Sid being his Soulmate, but he turned to Gonch with the biggest grin, not even ashamed.

 

“Serozhya! Sidney is my Soulmate!” He boasted in Russian, glancing once at Sidney before looking back to the door where Gonch was stood with a fond smile.

  
“I know, Zhenya,” he said. “I understand English as well.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Roman for making [this edit](http://applebottomcrosby.tumblr.com/post/140766560111/inspired-by-this-fic-by-mikerichards) for the fic! It was truly worth dedicating this to them :)


End file.
